WHOA WHOA WHOA!
Duck hunters are the same breed that hunt pheasants, turkeys, elk, and EVEN MULE DEER!
It is completely unfair to pigeon hole a group of sportsman by a few idiots you have seen. Don't we sit around here chastizing poachers of all kinds. Don't we hear of incidents almost daily of people taking animals out of season, not tagging animals, road hunting, and shooting them at night?
The problem with duck hunting is inherent to the game (as in animal). Ducks need water and you have to hunt where the ducks are...you follow. This limited hunting "space" puts us in much closer proximity to the duck hunting idiots than say if you were hunting some remote part of the grand Rockies for muleys, where I must remind you there are still unethical idiots.
Compounding the waterfowl problem in much (excuse me, all) of the country is the fact that guides and outfitters have leased up unimagineable quantities of land and made them inaccessible to the freelance and ordinary hunter. This in turn puts even more pressure on our public lands. Look at much of california that was once considered a waterfowlers paradise, now it's nothing more than a wrestling match for public land and rich mans choice of hunting lodge.
Call me a purist or call me naive, but I don't want to pay someone $100/day to do all the leg work and let me just SHOOT the ducks or other waterfowl. Part of the hunting experience is learning about your quarry through scouting and time spent in the field. There is part of generation of hunters being brought up to believe that duck "hunting" is traveling to some lodge, going to bed and *poof*, magically you wake up in a field or in a pond full of birds.
ok, deep breaths
I think that is all from me today
smalls
